Sat 12th May – 3rd XI v Malden

MALDEN WANDERERS 93 lost to DULWICH 93-7 by 3 wickets

Dulwich 3rd team travelled to Malden Wanderers on Saturday in the hope of maintaining their winning start to the season. The Earl of Dulwich was there to see the game and here is his report…..

The Earl predicted a high scoring game when he saw the boundary seemed to be touching the inner circle in places. How wrong he was….

Simon Leather won the toss and put a young Malden side in to bat. Richard Linfield making his debut for Dulwich and Ram Rethinasamy opened the bowling and kept things tight. Linfield took the first 3 wickets, including a sensational one handed diving slip catch by the skipper. The tight opening partnership was followed up by Tom Peacock and Jeremy Jones. Both followed up the good start and picked up 2 and 3 wickets respectively. Rethinasamy returned to the attack and picked up a deserved wicket. Joel Garthwaite wrapped things up with the final wicket.

This left Malden with a below par score of 93 who committed the cardinal sin of not completing their overs.

The Malden youngsters who seemed to be a bit distracted with the bat due to Dulwich's boisterous attitude in the field, performed much better with the ball. Dulwich opened the batting with Adam Parkinson (another debutant) and Andrew Cornick. Unfortunately for Parkinson, he went early and was replaced by Alex Tyler. These two got the score to 44 where they both went quickly. This brought Oliver Stewart and specialist slip fielder Leather to the crease. Unfortunately, Leather's batting was not as good as his slip catching and he went for 2.

At 50 for 4, Malden sniffed an upset and went for the jugular. Unfortunately for Malden, Peacock back from injury and making his debut for the 3's was walking to the wicket. Peacock dropped anchor at one end to sure up the innings (looking every bit the opener who carried his bat in the U15 national final in 1994). Stewart scored freely from the other end until he missed a straight one and had to go. Peacock was joined by Garthwaite who scored a run a ball 5 before being trapped plumb LBW. An apoplectic Garthwaite let his team mates know of his disappointment.

Richard Reid who had been solid with the gloves earlier was next in the firing line. He went for 4 and Dulwich were now 7 down still needing 2 to win. A single and a wide were enough for Dulwich to claim the win. It was not a great batting performance and the Earl feels it will need to be improved for Dulwich to continue their winning start to the season.